Naia Noir & The Shoreway
Signature Animation for Cleveland's First Lakefront Tower in 53 Years
Ambition in Ohio
For 53 years, Cleveland built no housing on its own lakefront. Naia Noir, a 13-story, 110-unit luxury tower by local developer J Roc Development is the first new lakefront high-rise in Cuyahoga County in 53 years.
Our studio was brought on to make a two-minute architectural animation that had to carry the project’s ambition in Ohio.
New tower wrapped in glass
The site reads as a conversation between two buildings. A century-old warehouse, already reborn as The Shoreway’s brick-and-timber lofts, sits alongside a new tower wrapped in glass and a faceted, almost pixelated skin by Evident Architecture Office. The contrast is deliberate: heavy mass against a lighter superstructure, the simplicity of the old building sharpening the geometry of the new. “Two buildings, one address,” as the developer puts it. From the upper floors, residents get a view few buildings can offer—Lake Erie’s open horizon on one side and downtown Cleveland’s skyline on the other. That meeting of water and city is what makes the project special, and it became the focal point of the animation from the very beginning.
Artist and the Muse
Naia takes its name from the Greek naiad, a water nymph, and the brand was built around an “Artist and the Muse” pairing that mapped neatly onto the two structures: one that creates, one that inspires. ZOA Studio developed a concept called Resonate—a quieter approach and, frankly, a riskier one. Rather than relying on hero shots of empty interiors, the film follows imagined residents, buyer personas built scene by scene, moving through the spaces as though they already lived there.
A subtle resonance runs through the imagery, a ripple and vibration that ties the visual language straight back to the name. Visualization is becoming part of the design process, not the polish at the end of it, and a two-minute film that captures intent will out-travel a folder of perfect stills every time.
Getting Naia Noir out of the ground
Cleveland’s appetite for lakefront living was never really in doubt; the 53-year gap was more a financing and construction problem than a demand one. Getting Naia Noir out of the ground, and convincing investors what Cleveland’s waterfront could become, required $54 million. In many ways, that’s the same challenge an animation inherits: showing an outside audience why this stretch of shoreline is more than just another address, and why Cleveland deserves a place in the conversation about waterfront living.
Unusually disciplined
Measured against the genre, the drone fly-throughs, sweeping skyline shots, and polished lobby renders, Naia Noir’s film is unusually disciplined. It sells a feeling and a point of view rather than a spec sheet, and it does so with a coherence from logo to final frame that most residential marketing animations never achieve.
The tower is scheduled for completion in 2027, but the animation arrived first, which is exactly the point.
In a city that spent decades turning its back on the waterfront, someone had to show the city living on it before the architecture could.
Project details
Location
Cleveland, United States
Partner
Team
Péter Kollár
Bence Farkas
Marcelo Resala